| Book Title and Author |
Character Link |
|
Description
ISBN
date updated
|
| Across the Nightingale Floor
(Tales of the Otori, Book 1) by Lian Hearne |
Takeo |
|
Tomasu's family among the Hidden, a religious, peaceful tribe,
is murdered by the Tohan, who harass the Hidden wherever and whenever
they can. He is rescued by the Lord Otori, who renames him as Takeo,
after his own lost brother. Soon, Takeo realizes that he has abilities
and powers that are from his real family, known as The Tribe. To
achieve his revenge, he trains to use his powers to cross Lord Iida's
nightingale floor, an almost magical floor that is built to sound
out whenever a footstep crosses it.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 0142403245
ISBN-13: 978-0142403242
updated 28 March 2007
|
| The Amulet of Samarkand book
1 of the Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud |
Bartimaeus |
|
Bartimaeus is a djinni summoned by a boy out for revenge
on an older, more powerful wizard. Though Bartimaeus successfully
achieves the one task set to him, the young wizard cannot know the
consequences of this action.
The result is magical mayhem in modern London as the
snarky Bartimaeus narrates this story about the misuse of power
and wizardry.
Sometimes it's just good to read how it all goes from
the other side of the pentagram.
Hardcover
ISBN-10: 078681859X
ISBN-13: 978-0786818594updated 03 April 2007
updated 03 April 2007
|
| The Dark is Rising from the
Dark is Rising Sequence by Susan Cooper |
Will Stanton
|
|
At age 11, Will Stanton is the last of the Old Ones
fighting for the Light. He finds this out on his birthday as he
also learns his task: to seek out the six signs of power and restore
them in the fight against the rising Dark.
Even though he knows things such as magic, he is the
sign-seeker and so his role would be to find important things in
the fight against the Dark. Thus, I have labeled him a scout as
that's one of the scout's primary functions: moving things around.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 1416949658
ISBN-13: 978-1416949657
|
| Ender's Game by Orson Scott
Card |
Ender |
|
Ender Wiggins is a third child in a world that only
allows for two children, and he's also the last hope for mankind.
He's talented, just as his brother and sister were before him, but
in order to defeat an alien species he has to be much more than
that. So before he even becomes a teenager, Ender is launched into
space to learn combat training at The Battle School with other children
culled from around the world.
Even at the age of six, Ender is different. As he
becomes involved in The Battle School challenges it becomes clear
that Ender is meant to lead. And as those around him improve, the
challenges only become harder.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 0812550706
ISBN-13: 978-0812550702
updated 03 April 2007
|
| It by Stephen King |
Stuttering Bill |
|
In Derry, children disappear.
George, Stuttering Bill's brother, disappears one
day to a creature living beneath the sewers. Bill's stutter becomes
more pronounced, but the lost brother later gives him the resolve
to join up with other children, they're seven in all, to go into
the sewers after months of dealing with the creature's threats and
the normal everyday terrors such as bullies and families.
When they get older, they forget. And only when the
killings start again do they start to remember more than 20 years
later. Though Stuttering Bill is not the only one to summon them,
he is the one to bring them together. And in 20 years, they have
forgotten much of the power that comes with youth..
The book slingshots between both ages as the characters
are just remembering what happened when they were children.
A book of friends is entirely suited to the RPG gamer
as successful gaming circles require teamwork in order to be successful
at raids and missions.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 0451169514
ISBN-13: 978-0451169518
updated 03 April 2007
|
| Lankhmar: Tales of Fafhrd
and the Gray Mouser vol. 1 by Frizt Leiber |
Fafhrd
The Gray Mouser
|
|
Fafhrd is a barbarian of the Cold Waste. He has pirated
the seas and promised himself to someone in his village. But when
he meets Vlana, fugitive and dancer from the cities, he sees a way
to find what he truly seeks—civilization.
The Gray Mouser loses his wizard master, gains his
revenge, and takes his girl to the city to survive. He's your typical
jack of all trades, except he seems to be best at close quarters
and the arts of thieving. He represents the city dweller in contrast
to Fafhrd's barbarian (yet refined) nature.
This first volume starts slow as it introduces both
Fafhrd and The Gray
Mouser in separate stories, but picks up the pace once the two
characters meet in Lankhmar, the city of thieves. These two aren't
your heroic adventurers, but that was intentional. Leiber created
a "realistic" duo of men, who drink too much, work for
hire, and discover fantastic things about the world of Nehwon, much
of it unwittingly.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 1565048741
ISBN-13: 978-1565048744
updated 03 April 2007
|
| The Looking
Glass Wars by Frank Beddor |
Alyss |
|
Alyss of Wonderland must survive the bloody coup that
the exiled Queen of Hearts enacts against Wonderland, a place where
imagination comes to life. She flees the war through the assistance
of her personal guard, the Hatter Madigan, and survives in England
where no one believes her tale of Wonderland.
Meanwhile, her loyal Alyssians fight to depose the
Queen.
While the novel is about Alyss's own return from exile,
the novel suffers in that Alyss is almost completely helpless and
reliant on her subjects for the decade long span that the book covers.
Thus, it's more interesting to read about Hatter Madigan's many
swords than it is to read about Alyss's struggles in "regular"
England.
If nothing else, a gamer would be interested in the
novel because it presents an alternate, combat heavy vision of what
Wonderland would be like. As gamers, the technical workings of novels
are interesting as we see in them possible game mechanics and plotlines,
and this novel can be skimmed just for that purpose.
Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0803731531
updated 28 March 2007
|
| Nausicaa of the Valley
of the Wind vol. 1 by Hayao Miyazaki |
Nausicaa |
|
Nausicaa's world is a wasteland and her people are survivors on
the edge of that wasteland. At some point the world suffered a terrible
apocalyptic event that left much destroyed and the forests became
mutated into dangerous places for dangerous creatures. Nausicaa
represents one of the forces left on earth who seek to change the
order of things. In the meantime, however, she must pilot her people's
gunship in a pointless war, fight off the Princess Kushana who seeks
something that Nausicaa is hiding, and deal with intelligent giant
insects.
This was originally published in Japan as a manga,
and has made it to the United States as both a DVD and as a translated
work.
updated 02 April 2007
|
| Sabriel by Garth Nix (Abhorsen
Trilogy, Book 1) |
Sabriel |
|
Sabriel attends a school in Ancelstierre where she learns various
skills, including magic. Magic is weakened in that land, but to
the north lies the Old Kingdom where Free Magic thrives. Because
she is a necromancer, she sees and brings the spirits of the dead
to rest. When her father disappears, she goes into the land of the
dangerous Free Magic, the Old Kingdom, to discover whether he waits
in the land beyond.
Mass Market Paperback
ISBN-10: 0064471837
ISBN-13: 978-0064471831
Hardcover Edition
ISBN-10: 0060273224
ISBN-13: 978-0060273224
updated 27 March 2007
|
| Trollslayer by William
King |
Gotrek Gurnisson
Felix Jaeger
|
|
Gotrek seeks a mighty death in battle with creatures to pay for
some shameful act in the Dwarven kingdoms. In order to seek that
death, he seeks battle with bigger and bigger monsters, and as the
books progress the works of Chaos become more and more prevalent
as he somehow manages to survive every encounter with his Rememberer,
Felix Jaeger.
Felix was rescued from trampling horses by Gotrek.
Later, when drunk, he swore to follow Gotrek wherever he goes and
write the tale of his death saga, part of which appears at the start
of the chapters in the books.
In the course of their adventures Felix sobers up,
but manages to continue following Gotrek.
Trollslayer is the first of his books in his
Death Saga. It is episodic and set in the Warhammer world (not to
be confused with Warcraft), and in it there are all sorts of daemonic
influences for Gotrek and Felix to uncover, and slay.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 1844160025
ISBN-13: 978-1844160020
Collected in Felix and Gotrek the First Omnibus
ISBN-10: 1844163741
ISBN-13: 978-1844163748
|
| Wild Magic book 1 of The Immortals
by Tamora Pierce |
Daine |
|
Daine can communicate with animals. This alone gets
her a job handling the Riders horses under Onua. However, as she
continues to travel (meeting the Lioness Alanna, the Queen herself,
and many others along the way) it becomes clear that her rapport
with the animals can lead to dangerous ends, possibly forcing her
to join with the animals and become one herself.
As the wizard Numair attempts to train her, the kingdom
becomes beset by the recently released Immortals, and all manner
of creatures are not only terrorizing the camp, but Daine herself.
Paperback
ISBN-10: 1416903437
ISBN-13: 978-1416903437
|
| Wintersmith
by Terry Pratchett (A Discworld Novel) |
Tiffany
Aching |
|
Tiffany Aching, not quite 13 year old witch-in-training,
attracts the unwanted romantic advances of the personification of
Winter on top of her attempts to learn the ways and means of magic
from Miss Treason. She hides from the Wintersmith with the help
of Granny Weatherwax, Agnes Nitt, and Nanny Ogg, all members of
her coven, as her servants, the Nac Mac Feegles, eat and drink and
try to rescue the lady of Summer.
There are two books prior to Wintersmith—The
Wee Free Men and A Hatful of Sky— but Pratchett
eases the new reader in such that it's simple to understand who
or what is going on. Wintersmith is a wonderful coming of
age story, mixed with romance, mixed with the hilarity of the Feegles
(drunken smurfs anyone?), mixed with the magic and life of any other
Terry Pratchett novel.
Hardcover
ISBN-10: 0060890312
ISBN-13: 978-0060890315
|